Sources claim Sinofsky wasn't a team player. He leaves the company after 20+ years.

Steven Sinofsky, president of Windows and Windows Live Division, is leaving Microsoft effective immediately, reports All Things D.

The move is claimed to be a result of growing discontent within the software giant, with a number of executives reportedly unhappy when working with him due to his failure to be a "team player." Such a move has striking parallels with Scott Forstall's recent exit from Apple.

Sinofsky held his current position since 2009, but he joined Microsoft in 1989, more than 20 years ago. All Things D says responsibility for Windows will now be split between two of Sinofsky's reports: Julie Larson-Green, who will head up Windows engineering, and Tami Reller, who will take care of the business side.

In a press release, CEO Steve Ballmer said the company needed to be more aligned and integrated, with more regular software releases:

I am grateful for the many years of work that Steven has contributed to the company. The products and services we have delivered to the market in the past few months mark the launch of a new era at Microsoft. We've built an incredible foundation with new releases of Microsoft Office, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Microsoft Surface, Windows Server 2012, and Halo 4, and great integration of services such as Bing, Skype, and Xbox across all our products. To continue this success it is imperative that we continue to drive alignment across all Microsoft teams, and have more integrated and rapid development cycles for our offerings.

In his statement, Sinofsky wrote:

It is impossible to count the blessings I have received over my years at Microsoft. I am humbled by the professionalism and generosity of everyone I have had the good fortune to work with at this awesome company.

Update: Microsoft has confirmed the new roles of Larson-Green and Reller in a press release.

From the Verge, we have the text of Ballmer's internal mail announcing the changes:

Over the past few months we have delivered the foundation for a new era for Microsoft. From Office to Bing to Windows Phone and Windows Azure, to Xbox and of course Windows and Surface and everything in between, we’ve unleashed a huge wave of devices and services that people and businesses love. I simply couldn’t be more proud of the effort you have all put in to get us here and to set the foundation for our future. At the Windows launch in New York, at the Windows Phone event in San Francisco, and again at the Build event on Redmond campus, I was struck that while externally many people look at these events as the finish line, they really represent the starting line of a new era.

As we enter this new era, and with the successful launch of Windows 8 and Surface behind us, Steven Sinofsky has decided to leave the company. Steven joined Microsoft in 1989 as a software development engineer and has contributed to the company in many ways from his work as a technical advisor to Bill Gates, to leading the evolution of the Microsoft Office business, to his direction and successful leadership of Windows and Windows Live as well as Surface. I am grateful for the work that Steven has delivered in his time at our company. Effective immediately, Julie Larson-Green will lead Windows engineering. She will be responsible for all product development for Windows and Windows Live, in addition to Surface. Julie has been a stalwart leader of building compelling “experiences” from her time on Internet Explorer, through the evolution of Office and most recently to the re-imagination of Windows. Her unique product and innovation perspective and proven ability to effectively collaborate and drive a cross company agenda will serve us well as she takes on this new leadership role. All of the current Windows engineering teams will report into Julie, and Julie will report to me.

Tami Reller will lead business and marketing strategy for Windows including Surface and partner devices. She will provide broad stewardship to our PC marketing efforts while managing the line business functions for Windows. Her work on Windows since 2007 has been exemplary and her strong talents in working with internal groups and partners will also serve us well. Tami also will report to me.

We are facing a time of great opportunity. What we have accomplished over the past few years is nothing short of amazing, and I know we have more amazing in us. I am excited about our people, I am energized by our ability to change and grow, and I look forward to the success which lies ahead. Thank you for all you do, and please join me in congratulating our new leadership and celebrating all that we have accomplished so far.

Steve

And from Paul Thurrott we have Sinofsky's mail announcing his departure:

With the general availability of Windows 8/RT and Surface, I have decided it is time for me to take a step back from my responsibilities at Microsoft. I’ve always advocated using the break between product cycles as an opportunity to reflect and to look ahead, and that applies to me too.

After more than 23 years working on a wide range of Microsoft products, I have decided to leave the company to seek new opportunities that build on these experiences. My passion for building products is as strong as ever and I look forward focusing my energy and creativity along similar lines.

The Windows team, in partnerships across all of Microsoft and our industry, just completed products and services introducing a new era of Windows computing. It is an incredible experience to be part of a generational change in a unique product like Windows, one accomplished with an undeniable elegance. Building on Windows, Surface excels in design and utility for a new era of PCs. With the Store, Internet Explorer, Outlook.com, SkyDrive and more, each of which lead the way, this experience is connected to amazing cloud services.
It is inspiring to think of these efforts making their way into the hands of Microsoft’s next billion customers. We can reflect on this project as a remarkable achievement for each of us and for the team. Our work is not done, such is the world of technology, and so much more is in store for customers.

It is impossible to count the blessings I have received over my years at Microsoft. I am humbled by the professionalism and generosity of everyone I have had the good fortune to work with at this awesome company. I am beyond grateful.
I have always promised myself when the right time came for me to change course, I would be brief, unlike one of my infamous short blog posts, and strive to be less memorable than the products and teams with which I have been proudly and humbly associated. The brevity of this announcement is simply a feature.

Some might notice a bit of chatter speculating about this decision or timing. I can assure you that none could be true as this was a personal and private choice that in no way reflects any speculation or theories one might read—about me, opportunity, the company or its leadership.
As I’ve always believed in making space for new leaders as quickly as possible, this announcement is effective immediately and I will assist however needed with the transition.
I am super excited for what the future holds for the team and Microsoft.

With my deepest appreciation,
Steven Sinofsky

Sent from Surface RT

Promoted Comments

I worked at Microsoft from Nov 2005-Jan 2012, and saw and was impacted by Sinofsky's takeover of Windows.

He's definitely a smart guy, and wrote a great internal blog on management and other topics. And he makes good products that work. But "not a team player" sure has resonance. He was brutal in getting rid of technologies he found competitive to Windows.

He essentially tore apart both the Windows Media and then the Silverlight teams to get development teams to build Windows features in the Windows org. And he made Silverlight go away as a meaningful platform because it validated Mac and downlevel versions of Windows, and made it impossible to even communicate to partners about plans for the future of Silverlight and .NET. This lost him a whole lot of XAML/C#/.NET developers during the nearly year-long period they were waiting to eventually discover that those technologies were alive and well in Win8 and a peer to HTML5 for Metro app development.

And those developers went to learn iOS and Flash for the most part. Which seemed self-defeating to me. Why throw away a critical mass of developers already working on Microsoft-centric technologies?

Basically he could be a great team player as long as he was in charge of the whole team, and I was really impressed by much of what he did. But his job was always Windows v.next, and he never really did much to support the other parts of Microsoft or the Windows ecosystem. After all, the version of WIndows people could buy wasn't ever the version he was building!

161 Reader Comments

Wow this is unexpected (from an outsider's standpoint at least). I can't imagine it was just a parting of ways because he wasn't a team player. Possible infidelity involved? Lawsuit avoided? Seems odd to be immediate. Whatever happened it didn't end well that's for sure.

edit

Now that I think about it maybe this was something that was going to happen anyway and they just figured now was as good a time as any. I doubt the infidelity part, just extra drama lol.

"Not a team player" is often a corporate euphemism used to describe brilliant people who are frustrated with idiots that surround them, and attempt to do everything themselves because someone else would botch it. Is that the case here? Or is the guy just a jerk who wanted to have his way no matter what?

This actually makes me quite happy. I've heard many stories both on this site and others that I frequent, about this man's complete totalitarian control and complete lack of team-work. He blames anything that happens on his subordinates or co-workers and takes any of their praise as well.

This may be all second-hand from threads and comments - but I mean, let's face it. You hear it enough times from enough different people and a consistent pattern begins to emerge.

"Not a team player" is often a corporate euphemism used to describe brilliant people who are frustrated with idiots that surround them, and attempt to do everything themselves because someone else would botch it. Is that the case here? Or is the guy just a jerk who wanted to have his way no matter what?

"Not a team player" is often a corporate euphemism used to describe brilliant people who are frustrated with idiots that surround them, and attempt to do everything themselves because someone else would botch it. Is that the case here? Or is the guy just a jerk who wanted to have his way no matter what?

Reports I hear from inside the category say the latter. Look at all the internal transfers to the Azure team.

A shame he didn't go early and never pushed Ozzie out. Not fitting well is a really bad thing in an organization that big, so hopefully Microsoft can bring in someone who can build from it.

Indeed, it really was a shame to see Ozzie go when he did. I was hoping he'd be there much longer (even as long as he was there). He really had quite a vision for the "connected future" that is already beginning to come to pass. It was him that pushed for further build-out of stuff like Sky-Drive, Office 365 and Azure, just to name a few.

I thought Metro and Surface were his babies. Hmmm, I hope this isn't some kind of indicator that MS is about to perform a knee-jerk course adjustment regarding those two. Hopefully it's more about getting someone out of the way that was hard for the other divisions to work with so they can actually all start working together for once. Which desperately, desperately needs to happen.

This sort of screams from the sidelines that there is disappointment with Windows 8.I admit I'm not following it very closely, like I was with Win7, Vista, all the way back to Win95, but it seems as if the momentum and excitement behind Windows 8 has already left the building.

Maybe he was the only person within the company with the balls to tell Ballmer that Windows 8 is a bad idea *badum* *tiss*

Steven Sinofsky is directly responsible for the debacle that is Windows 8 - he was the president of the Windows division, he has to take the blame for any of its failures particularly when there was such a backlash early on during the previews, and not much changed to satisfy the complaints.

On the other hand, he also headed the development of Windows 7 so I can't criticize the guy too much. Kinda weird the same guy was in charge of both versions of Windows.

This is quite a shock. But I have always though that Sinofsky was the key player that was holding the Windows Phone team back. The fact that there's a "Windows" in the Windows Phone was a top down decision and who else would have been able to decide that but Sinofsky?

Another thing, I bet the decision to kill the term "Metro" was not about Metro AG's trademark, but was Sinofsky's direct order of killing it. In fact "Metro" was a term coined by Joe Belfiore for the design of Windows Media Center. Metro is a design language, so how could it violate a trademark? Microsoft never registered "Metro" in the US where Metro AG has no business property. The trademark story was probably made up to hide the politics behind Sinofsky.

There's no effin' way they're making any course change regarding Surface or Metro. People need to get over that already. Also, it's way, way too early to call W8 or Surface anything yet. Give it awhile.

Not playing nice with others could be partially responsible for the confused messages surrounding Windows 8/RT/Metro/Not Metro, and lead to internal resistance to porting major applications to "Not Metro".

Not trolling here I promise, but lets add fuel to the fire: the first salvo of more executive shakeup from bad win8 sales (software and hardware) numbers?

Fire extinguisher to your fires.

First. While Sinofsky's wording does not suggest a friendly departure, he's far from a civil war casualty like Forstall.

Second. You should wait till you get real sales numbers for W8 before you jump conclusions.

For all we know, Sinofsky might have given Ballmer an ultimatum (e.g. the promise to be next CEO?) and Ballmer might have decided that he's not the right man for the job. It's all speculation at this point.

"Not a team player" is often a corporate euphemism used to describe brilliant people who are frustrated with idiots that surround them, and attempt to do everything themselves because someone else would botch it. Is that the case here? Or is the guy just a jerk who wanted to have his way no matter what?

In my experience those who are claimed to be brilliant while surrounded by idiots are usually the idiot. I've worked with and for plenty of people like that. Also, I was in the Windows division when Valentine ran it. Ugh.

This suprises me. I also heard he was difficult to work with. But he also pushed for a lot of changes that needed to occur, and got Windows on a regular release schedule again.

"Not a team player" is often a corporate euphemism used to describe brilliant people who are frustrated with idiots that surround them, and attempt to do everything themselves because someone else would botch it. Is that the case here? Or is the guy just a jerk who wanted to have his way no matter what?

By all counts he was brilliant but an absolute handful as a manager... There was an article last month that outlined his career and his famous run ins with Robbie Bach the head of interactive and J Allard the head of the Xbox division.